This is the second week of 2025, and we who are following Amy Johnson Crow's blog prompts in her series 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks post and blog about a favorite family photograph. Here is mine:
This is my father, Arden Packard, USN, and his Corsair aircraft at Naval Air Station Miami (Florida) in 1941. Daddy enlisted in the Navy in 1929, right out of high school [1]. He was in training at the Naval Training Center in San Diego, California, and was enumerated there in the 1930 census [2]. He took a competitive exam and gained admission to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland [3]. In 1937, he reported aboard Naval Air Station Pensacola (Florida) for flight training [4]. There he pursued another passion, as it was in Pensacola that he met and married my mother [5].
He had been medically retired from the Navy in 6 February 1941 [6]. He was recalled to active duty 3 October 1941 [7]. I have to think that if the Navy was recalling broken-down old pilots, there was something brewing.
Because of some surgery he had had, he was effectively grounded. [8]. This photo was
taken not long before he was grounded. Even at that, he was rated in
one of his fitness reports as being in the top 10% of naval aviators in
his proficiency as an aviator. On this same fitness report, my father is shown as having completed some 432 flight hours as a flight instructor [9].
I love this photo because my dad loved flying, as indicated by the big grin on his face in the photo. In high school, he was a member of the Aero Club, and his father once arranged for him and his fellow club members to enjoy a flight in a commercial airplane [10].
He flew in the days before military jet aircraft. In those days, military pilots wore their parachutes slung low, and ended up sitting on them while flying. The parachute would become hard and uncomfortable, prompting a nickname for the malady caused by sitting on that packed-down parachute. He used that nickname as he complained to my mother one afternoon when he went home [11]:
"I've got PB!" he moaned.
My mother asked, "What's PB?"
"Parachute Butt!"
Now, in our family, discomfort from sitting in an uncomfortable chair or couch is called "PB."
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References:
[1] "Statement of Service for Pay Purposes, request for," in Arden Packard, U.S. Navy Service Record, Case Reference Number 2002-191-1946, National Personnel Records Center.
[2] U.S. Census Bureau, Population Census 1930, San Diego, California, United States Naval Training Center, ED 37-56. Microfilm Publication T626, Sheet 10-B, Line 66. National Archives and Records Administration.
[3] "Statement of Service for Pay Purposes, request for," in Arden Packard, U.S. Navy Service Record, Case Reference Number 2002-191-1946, National Personnel Records Center.
[4] "Report of Compliance with Orders," 25 January 1937, in Arden Packard, U.S. Navy Service Record, Case Reference Number 2002-191-1946, National Personnel Records Center. (He was detached from the aircraft carrier USS Farragut 20 November 1936 and reported aboard NAS Pensacola, after leave granted upon detachment from Farragut, 25 January 1937.)
[5] State of Florida, Escambia County, Marriage License and Certificate, Arden Packard and Martha Shideler Reed, 16 July 1937. Marriage Book 36, Page 248.
[6] "Statement of Service for Pay Purposes, request for," in Arden Packard, U.S. Navy Service Record, Case Reference Number 2002-191-1946, National Personnel Records Center.
[7] Navy Department, Bureau of Navigation, note stating Arden Packard recalled to active duty 3 October 1941; reported to NAS Miami around 22 October 1941, in Arden Packard, U.S. Navy Service Record, Case Reference Number 2002-191-1946, National Personnel Records Center. (This is a very cryptic note, not in the usual form of Navy correspondence, no subject line, no signature, but on Bureau of Navigation letterhead.)
[8] Chief, Bureau of Medicine, US Navy, letter 15 September 1942, in Arden Packard, U.S. Navy Service Record, Case Reference Number 2002-191-1946, National Personnel Records Center. (He had been found qualified for flight duty by a board of flight surgeons at NAS Miami, but the Bureau of Medicine reviewed the case and ruled that he was "not physically qualified for duty involving actual control of aircraft.")
[9] Officer's Fitness Report (Navpers 310A (revised 8-44)), 28 February 1945, in Arden Packard, U.S. Navy Service Record, Case Reference Number 2002-191-1946, National Personnel Records Center.
[10] "Student Aviators Take Plane Trips," Pasadena (California) Post, 16 April 1929, Page 13.
[11] Family story told to me by my mother.
1 comment:
I've never heard the term PB before, but I love your dad's story.
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